Formal semantics (henceforth FS), at least as it relates to computational language
understanding, is in one way rather like connectionism, though without the
crucial prop Sejnowski’s work (1986) is widely believed to give to the latter:
both are old doctrines returned, like the Bourbons, having learned nothing and
forgotten nothing. But FS has nothing to show as a showpiece of success after
all the intellectual groaning and eﬀort.